Eddie Murphy named the most overpaid actor in Hollywood, Katherine Heigl second

THEY may be some of the biggest names in Hollywood, but when you crunch the numbers, they don't always produce big bang for their buck.

Forbes.com has released their annual list of "most overpaid" actors and some of the names come as quite a surprise - with a few Oscar winners making an appearance in the list.

The list was compiled by looking at the box office takings for the last three films each actor starred in during the last three years. The income was then matched against the amount the actor was paid to reveal a return to investment number, per dollar invested in the star.

Eddie Murphy has been named as the actor who offers the worst value for money, returning just $2.30 in box office dollars for every $1 paid.

While that may seem like a healthy return, the website says in order to even come close to turning a profit, "a movie has to earn twice its production budget in ticket sales, plus the millions spent on marketing."

Murphy was paid $7.5 million for his role in Tower Heist, the Ben Stiller comedy that Forbes says "earned $153 million at the global box office, but cost $75 million to make, which means it barely returned any kind of profit."

With that in mind, it's not looking good for Eddie Murphy's future prospects.

"Murphy's career has just collapsed," Forbes said.

"His recent films, like Meet Dave, A Thousand Words and Imagine That, have been spectacular bombs. Tower Heist, which was meant to be something of a comeback for the comedian, didn't perform as well as expected at the box office."

Murphy moved up one place from second on the list last year, behind Drew Barrymore.

Romantic comedy favourite Katherine Heigl was runner-up to the comedy legend in this year's analysis, returning just $3.40 for every dollar.

Forbes is expecting her future pay-packets to dive on the back of films such as One For The Money, which earned a paltry $37 million.

Forbes placed Reece Witherspoon third, adding that she had made "questionable" choices such as the romantic comedy How Do You Know, which was one of 2010's worst-performing films. It cost $120 million, but grossed just $49 million.

Oscar winner Sandra Bullock was a surprise entrant at number four, given her success with 2009's The Blind Side, but flops such as All About Steve left her returning just $5 for every dollar paid.